Order Commended
Diocesan Press Service. December 10, 1962 [V-13]
NEW YORK -- The chairman of the Department of Christian Social Relations of the National Council has commended President Kennedy for issuing an executive order banning discrimination in all housing financed by the federal government.
The Rt. Rev. Frederick J. Warnecke, Bishop of Bethlehem, said that as long ago as February, 1961, the National Council had officially requested the President to take such action.
Bishop Warnecke also cited other instances in which the Episcopal Church has vigorously protested housing discrimination.
On Nov. 1, the House of Bishops at their annual meeting in Columbia, 8. C., called for justice in housing opportunities.
The House of Bishops also stated that "Neither race nor color is in itself a barrier to any aspect of that life in community for which God created man."
At the 1958 Lambeth Conference, delegates recognized that "there is a world- wide need for decent and suitable housing." They also recorded the belief that "every married couple should have adequate privacy and shelter, for the better bringing up of the family as well as for the benefit of its own married life," and. added that "national and local government (should) share fully with private enterprise the community's obligation to meet this need."
The Church's General Convention in 1958 called upon all persons, especially Episcopalians, "to work together, in charity and forbearance, towards the establishment, without racial discrimination, of full opportunities in fields such as education, housing, employment and public accommodations."